Little Panic

by Amanda Stern

  “Every section is timed. You are to follow the instructions carefully and listen to everything I say. I will not be answering any questions. The test is not difficult. You should be able to figure everything out quite easily. Is that clear?”

  My classmates mumble yes.

  “You must think hard and you must think fast. What you’re entitled to, you’ll get. Do you understand?” I don’t nod.

  Proctor sits on the edge of the stage. “You may begin.”

  Hundreds of hands flip over the short stacks. On the other side is something I’ve never seen before. Bubbles. Each row with a different letter of the alphabet. I don’t know how to use this form. All around me, my classmates are rubbing their pencils, massaging fresh squeaky tips into the circles. Proctor strolls up and down the aisles, hands behind his back. Kelvin and Manu turn one way, then the other, trying to make eye contact with Pietro, who seems to have no questions, because he’s filling in the forms like he uses them all the time. What am I supposed to do? Fill the circles in, or not? And which ones?

  Proctor claps, startling the entire front row. “Pencils down.”

  I put my pencil down without having scratched out one lead mark.

  “You may open the test booklet. When you are finished reading the paragraph, please look up.”

  I wait until everyone else has done this, just in case I didn’t hear correctly and then I open mine, too.

  ANALOGIES

  1. Blue : sky :: __________: grass

  2. Leg : knee :: _________ : elbow

  “You may begin.”

  I have never heard the word “ANALOGIES,” but it seems like ANALOGIES are words that want to be sentences but aren’t. I glance at Kelvin, hoping to find him flopped and weeping, rocking back and forth, but he stays calm, pencil tapping against the ruled paper in his blue book, thinking and considering. Kelvin is the dumbest person in the grade, but maybe now I’m the dumbest person in my grade. Maybe I have a brain tumor.

  I turn the page quickly, to see what’s next, and it’s one long stretch of ANALOGIES like dead animals on the highway, bloody and endless until “STOP” appears, three entire pages later. I look at the clock. I have thirty-nine minutes left. I circle the first words I see and vow never, ever, to think about this test again. Zola said this is a test to see how much we know.

  I don’t know anything.

  STOP.

  Why don’t I know anything?

  The next test is thirty minutes, and we are to think hard and think fast.

  STOP.

  Something in my chest feels sticky. No matter how many times I wipe my hand on my corduroys, they won’t stop sweating. The number 2 pencil slips from my hand. Everyone turns to stare at me. I have forgotten how to breathe.

  How many cents will 8 oranges cost at 3 cents each? Answer: _____. Maybe I should go to the nurse.

  David earned $3.50 in June, $2.25 in July, and $1.50 in August. How much did he earn in all? Answer: ______. Maybe I have the flu or leprosy. I need to call my mom.

  Frank bought 3 two-cent postage stamps and 13 one-cent stamps. How much did he pay for all? Answer: _____. I am so tired. I just want to put my head down and rest. Just sleep until this is done. If I’m left back a grade, does that mean I’ll come to school tomorrow and be sent to fourth grade, or does it mean that next year I’ll start fifth grade again?

  I think I need to go to the hospital.

  “Pencils down!” Proctor says. “You have thirty minutes for the next section. You may begin.”

  I put my hand on my heart like I’m doing the Pledge of Allegiance, but I’m telling my heart not to turn off. Now we have to put words in missing spaces. There are right words and wrong words and we need to think carefully, which means guessing, but how am I supposed to know what right word they were thinking of? I am not a psychic or a mind reader! I can feel every second crawling against my skin.

  Eventually, it’s pencils down. There’s a near stampede, everyone is racing away, out of the auditorium, to the cafeteria, and quickly, before Proctor changes his mind about the lunch break. During lunch, everyone is saying how easy the test is, and you’d have to be a moron to do badly. I am a moron. Pam says she was well-prepared, and a few other kids say they were, too, and Marlo pulls out flash cards. How did I miss that part of school? I am not hungry. I am curled inside a very small room inside myself, hoping no one can see that I don’t know anything.

  After lunch, it’s back to testing. Words switch places with one another on the page, and the room is growing dark at the edges. How did everyone prepare, and when? The smartest kids hold their arms around their blue books, afraid their right answers will slip off and roll to the feet of the wrong-answer kids.

  I am alone.

  * * *

  A month or so later, we are decorating the stage for the middle school production of Oliver, when Pilar comes racing in.

  “Did you guys hear about Kelvin?” she asks.

  “Was he kidnapped?” I stand, worried.

  “No. He has to stay back a grade,” Pilar tells us. I can’t believe she’s laughing at him. “He did really badly on the ERBs.”

  I’m about to ask how she knows, when she begins bragging about her score.

  “I should skip a grade, because I scored really high.”

  “I scored high, too,” Imogen says, proud.

  “I’m in the eighty-ninth percentile for math and ninety-fourth in verbal,” Pilar counters. “What’d you get?”

  I don’t even remember a test called verbal, and I have no idea what those percentiles mean. How do they know their scores?

  “Eightieth percentile in math and seventieth in verbal,” Imogen says.

  Pilar rolls her eyes. “I thought you said you did well.” She turns to me. “What’d you get?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “How could you not know?”

  “I didn’t know we got results.”

  “It was a test; of course there were results, you retard.”

  I look at Imogen, confused and hurt by Pilar, but she just shrugs.

  “I’m not a retard,” I say to Pilar.

  “You might be. Why else wouldn’t your parents tell you how you scored? Maybe you got zero percentile.”

  “I did not!”

  “How do you know? You didn’t even know there were results!”

  “My mom didn’t say anything,” I tell her.

  “That’s because your mom coddles you like a baby. That’s what my mom says.”

  “She does not!”

  “Does too! No one else’s mom sits with them in the classroom, no one else’s mom gets them out of school overnighters, or out of slumber parties. Your mom does everything for you.”

  Now I’m infuriated, and also mortified. I always assumed no one else could see my fears, or tears, or even my mom sitting in the classroom with me, and now I am humiliated and angry that other people—and their parents!—know my secrets and are judging me for them.

  “I’m not a baby,” I tell Pilar.

  “Your mom probably thinks you are, and that’s why she didn’t tell you. You’re a baby and a retard!”

  Why doesn’t my mom tell me the results for anything? Is Pilar right, and my mom thinks I’m stupid? Does she think I won’t understand my own scores? Suddenly, I’m furious at my mother for protecting me from things she doesn’t want me to know.

  Imogen’s head is traveling back and forth between us, but she doesn’t defend me. I know she’ll say she couldn’t read our lips fast enough, but her face is red and I can tell she’s embarrassed for me. When Pilar leaves, though, and I finally look at Imogen, she’s holding back tears.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask.

  She’s staring at her shredded Adidas. “I stayed back a grade.”

  “You did?” I ask, just as I remember her telling me that first day of third grade that it was her second time with Faith.

  She nods. “I’m not a retard, am I?” she asks.

 
“No,” I say. “One hundred percent definitely not.”

  I’m overcome with anger and resentment at my mother for doing everything for me instead of showing me how, for protecting me from the realities of the world instead of telling me the truth. I’m going to go home tonight and ask her for my test scores. Except: I’m angry and resentful at myself, too, for needing it. The more I think about it, the more I realize I can never get a straight answer from my mom that has to do with my own self. When I ask her why she and my dad divorced, she says it’s none of my business. When I ask her what Dr. Fine says after a visit, she says I don’t need to worry about it. She didn’t tell me Melissa died until I asked her. She probably won’t tell me my scores even if I do ask.

  Then again, she has always known when something was the right thing to do. And she’s hardly ever wrong. So maybe telling me bad news isn’t the right thing to do, and it’s Pilar’s parents who are bad parents. Maybe other people’s parents don’t know how to do the right thing.

  June 1981

  Dr. Rivka Golod

  Summary of Test Results

  While it may sound like Amanda has a block to learning and thinking, I’m not sure this is the total picture. My feeling is that it is truly difficult for Amanda to do certain kinds of cognitive tasks and that this was probably more the case when she was younger. Moreover, it does not appear that Amanda developed adequate compensatory mechanisms for learning, possibly because it became convenient and/or satisfactory, for whatever reasons, not to be so “smart,” so to speak.

  Yes, No, Maybe, I Don’t Know

  I start dating Javier. Despite the fact that I’ve vowed to not repeat the mistakes of the past, to listen to my gut—which says Javier is not my guy—the rest of me can’t decide. My plan is to keep it casual, refuse to be exclusive, but I am unprepared for the speech he gives me on our third date.

  He doesn’t want to see anyone else, just me, and don’t I want that also? I do not. Yet it’s also unthinkable that I would tell him anything other than what he wants to hear. I am convinced that any rejection, no matter how small, will catalyze in others the same thing it sets off in me, a pain so deeply personal that it sends me to bed for days. I say yes because I am terrified to hurt someone else so profoundly.

  My hyperaccommodation of other people’s feelings is a deeply wired reflex that feels impossible to unlearn. Separation anxiety fills me with such grief that I am pained on behalf of others; I refuse to cause someone else anxiety. And so, when Javier asks to be exclusive, although neither of us knows to whom we’re committing, I say yes when I really mean “I have no idea.” I was taught it’s charitable to protect people from their feelings rather than help them face them.

  One evening a few months into our relationship, Javier and I are in his apartment in Jersey City, where he’s cooking dinner. His apartment feels like we’re on a small boat, inside of a secret world, and I love the sense of containment, though it’s hard to completely relax into it with a massive painting, created by his ex-wife, looming over the dining room table.

  “So listen,” he says. “I don’t think Frankie wants to live with Meredith after this year. I have an idea: What if I sell this place and use the money to buy a house upstate for all of us to live? We’ll find her a school, have another kid, and I’ll shoot movies while you hold down the fort.”

  I look at him. “I have to hold down the fort?”

  “Yeah. I have to make the money.”

  “I have to make money, too.”

  He offers an indulgent smile and waits.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll hold down the fort!” I say, ever easygoing. “That sounds great.”

  Do I really believe that? I don’t think so; I’m not at all sure Javier is really right for me. But he makes me laugh harder than anyone. Something about him feels comforting, familiar, enough that I disregard the red flags. Do I care that he’s forty-six without a stable source of income? That he’s passive and ambitionless and controlled by his ex-wife and also maybe afraid of her? That he’s hard to engage in conversation? That he’s vaguely New Agey and says “blessed” and “love and light”? That I’ve never met his child, who is one of the reasons I chose him? In our best moments, he’s sexy and funny. Everything he’s saying is something I want to hear: He wants to put down roots, to have another baby.

  Besides, I’m forty. My eggs are probably so old they have neck wattles. So I pretend to him, and to myself, that this is the most amazing idea I’ve ever heard.

  He’s beaming. “Is it time to meet Frankie now?” he asks. He’s been asking this since our first date, but I’ve always hesitated. Kids usually love me, and I love kids, but I don’t want to take this leap of meeting his child without first being serious about her father. I’ve been a stepkid, and though I loved Jimmy, the dynamics are fraught. I love the idea of having a baby with Javi, but then again I love the idea of having a baby with anyone. I’m about to tell him to wait; I don’t think I’ve thought this through all the way. But then he smiles at me again, pleading.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Next thing I know, we’ve made plans to go apple-picking upstate.

  * * *

  A couple of weeks later, we meet at Eddie’s house to pick up Lili, my nine-year-old niece, who will join us on the excursion. I’m more nervous than I thought I’d be, since I really want to get this right. I’ve bought Frankie “I’m so happy to meet you” books (When You Reach Me and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH) and a card that took me much too long to compose. It reads, “I’m so glad to finally meet your dad’s favorite person. I hope you haven’t read these, but if you have, please don’t throw apples at my head.” As soon as she walks in I can see that Frankie is small like her dad, with wide-set eyes, full lips, and straight, caramel-colored hair. She’s both beautiful and soulful, but when I try to greet her there’s a look in her eye that makes me anxious. Is she bratty, contemptuous, or just shy? I can’t tell what’s wrong, but I know it’s me.

  At least the card makes her laugh. I try to relax as she and Lili giggle happily together in the backseat, instant friends. Javier tries to catch my eye as he drives, but I don’t know how to fake an appreciation for Frankie that I don’t feel. At the apple farm, we get our baskets and start picking. Frankie is serious and quiet. She climbs up into the trees and yanks apples down, inspecting them carefully. She walks ahead of everyone, even Lili, and when I try to help her reach a branch, she turns on me and snaps, “I can do it myself.”

  I choke back my disappointment. When Javi told me about her, he presented her as a bucket filled with love and affection, said that she climbs onto the laps of everyone who walks through her front door. Clearly, I don’t qualify. I remind myself that I gave Javi extra chances, so I need to do the same with Frankie. But what if she and I hate each other? Even though I chose Javi in part to have a child in my life, now I worry that she’s going to come between us, prevent Javi and me from starting the family I so desperately want. I bat away my dread, but it’s too late. On the drive back home, Javier turns to me.

  “I’m so glad you two met. Isn’t she magical? Isn’t she the most incredible kid ever?”

  “She’s pretty great,” I lie. This is a fucking catastrophe.

  We finally reach Javier’s sister Valentina’s apartment in Manhattan, where we’re dropping Frankie off to spend the night. Valentina is lovely: earthy and maternal. She embraces Frankie and Javier, and even Lili and me, and insists that we make ourselves at home, though we plan on staying for only a moment. In the living room, Frankie and Valentina huddle together and then turn to us, smiling.

  “Frankie is showing me the books and your card,” Valentina says.

  Frankie is beaming up at me. “I didn’t throw any apples at her head!” She doubles over with laughter. I’m thrilled that my card meant something to her after all, that she does think I’m special, the same way her dad wants me to think she’s special.

  But even so, I’m confused by her, or at least by the differ
ence between Javi’s description and my experience of her. She’s not sunny and lighthearted; she’s intense and thoughtful. How does he see such an opposite version of his own child? This incongruence stirs another flash of anxiety. When I was little there was a version of me that felt out of alignment with who I really was. The adults’ version had me learning disabled, and the other version—mine—had me devoured by mental anguish. Do Javi and I look at the world and see different truths? Will this always be true with the people I depend on?

  When it’s time to leave, Frankie throws her arms around me and squeezes hard.

  “I liked meeting you, Amanda,” she says. “You’re a good girlfriend for my dad. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

  I laugh. “Perhaps we will.”

  * * *

  Two months later, Javier invites me to spend Christmas with his family in Massachusetts. A regular Jewish Christmas at my mom’s in the garden is regularly fun, but each year as my siblings’ families expand and take on their own traditions and the garden kids marry and procreate, I grow more self-conscious about appearing to others as though I have not broken free from my family of origin, mortified that they can see my child-self got her wish to never leave home. When the day ends and I return home to my apartment, I throw myself onto my bed and cry myself to sleep in my clothes. I’m excited to experience a different version of me during the holidays, in another town. Frankie will be there and so will all seven of Javi’s siblings. He and Frankie drive in from Maine and pick me up at the train station.

  “You’re going to meet my whole family, even Abi and Abu!” Frankie greets me, excited. “Are you nervous?”

  “I am,” I admit, taken off-guard by the degree of her empathy.